Ok, so from the number of comments from my family about my blog title, I appear to have caused some confusion. I have not acquired a new nickname "Louisi". Louisi(Hannah) is a play on "Louisiana." Clever, right? Er.... anyway...

More meals we've cooked:

1. Potato/carrot pancakes with applesauce and salad (mmmmh!)
2. Pasta with eggs scrambled in (Lillian style) and corn. Pasta undercooked (my fault.)

Once again I'm at the Fair Grind coffee shop. On Friday the cable people come by to set up our wireless internet in the house, but I'm still planning on frequenting this place. There are always a ton of people here just hanging out, talking, and drinking yerba mint iced tea. There are several other wireless networks in our neighborhood (one titled "IMPEACH BUSH NOW") but I can't seem to tap into any of them from the house.

Yesterday Phil and I went on a mission to supply our home with much-needed items (toaster, can opener, toilet plunger etc.) We drove over the Metairie and ended up on a highway that looked exactly like Route 9 in Poughkeepsie. It's comforting to know I have a Target, Barnes and Noble, Lowes and Linens n Things fifteen minutes away, but I much prefer the smaller local stores in New Orleans proper. One thing I've noticed about New Orleans is that it's all about the local. There aren't even very many national banks here, which makes me wonder what happened when thousands of people were put on buses and planes and transported to other parts of the country where they might not have access to their bank accounts.

After Metairie we went over to Jan Gilbert's art studio which she is moving out of to pick up a couple of filing cabinets she's donating to us. We had a few problems including the fact that a. each filing cabinet weighed about 500 pounds, b. Phil and I were both wearing Berkenstocks, c. the elevator is ancient and involves pulling on a cable and praying and d. we couldn't pull the car up because the whole street was blocked off due to construction. Two hours and a couple of near-death experiences later, Phil and I were back in the car with the filing cabinets. Now our living room looks a little homier. We still need a couch (which we will be getting as soon as we start getting paid, in case any of you want to come visit WHICH YOU SHOULD) but we now have a sort of music station set up with Phil's speakers, mixer, computer and record player.

After dinner we watched "Logan's Run" a classic 70s futuristic dystopian drama that involves scantily clad women and a really funny old guy who lives with a bunch of cats.

Because I keep mentioning Jan Gilbert, I should tell you who she is! Jan is the contemporary artist and New Orleans native who Richard Schechner directed me to back in February. She does a lot of photographic collage work dealing with family, history and memory, and works with a coalition of artists called the Vestiges Project that was founded in 1984 and is devoted to facilitating conversations and community-based work related to New Orleans. Jan did an installation in June that I went to see in Lakeview, a neighborhood in the north of the city right on Lake Pontchartrain that was flooded terribly in the aftermath of Katrina. The whole piece was called "LakeviewS," and was a bus tour around the area that stopped at a number of sites along the way where we watched performance pieces and explored art installations related to the history, devastation and reconstruction of the neighborhood. Jan had created a string of photographs related to her childhood and family history and wrapped them around her childhood home in Lakeview (which has been gutted and "flipped" by developers). She also played the audio from home videos from her childhood out the windows.

LakeviewS was affiliated with an ongoing project called "Home, New Orleans?" that was created after Katrina as a forum for artists to come together and work for positive change.

Here are some interesting links: